


The Beginning of the End

by lookingforatardis



Series: The Blank Years [6]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Angst, Drinking, M/M, Oliver pov, Separation, The Blank Years, oliver is in a Mood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 14:31:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14427486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforatardis/pseuds/lookingforatardis
Summary: The words haunt, impressed in my memory already. How am I supposed to move on when I know he feels the same?Part of a series of fics from the time where Elio and Oliver have no direct contact, otherwise known as The Blank Years.





	The Beginning of the End

**Author's Note:**

> IM SO SORRY!!! It's been forever since I've updated this story, I know. I've got two more chapters in the works, though. It's a matter of finding time now that I've got some inspiration for it. If you haven't read the other parts of this story, I suggest you do that first.
> 
> Timeline: Right at the start, the origin of the Blank Years from Oliver's pov.

_"Drinking my weight won't leave me happy."_

I can still hear his words echoing in the back of my mind like rocks in a landslide. It's a lot. His voice, his wisdom unearned by age. He's a lot.

But I take it as a challenge, each shot poured, each drink downed a solid _fuck you._ He can't control me, he can't understand. He doesn't see the restlessness undone by his smile, eyes, curve of his spine. He doesn't see the dreams that consume me when sleep overtakes me after a night of gambling, of moonlight, of trying to think of anything but him on the other side of the wall. He's everything and nothing and consuming and intoxicating and I hate him for nothing more than how much I want him.

How could he ever think I wanted anything but him? His body, his mind, his soul, his everything? He's all I see. His voice is the only thing I can hear anymore, his touch the only thing that ignites. The balance of right and wrong is irrelevant when I consider the possibility of eternities in his arms. I want him so bad—

 

* * *

 

 

"Oliver?"

Jonathan's voice pulls me from the memory, the scotch in front of me full again and tempting. "Are you alright?" It's the closest I'll ever come to someone asking the question that means everything. I want someone to ask about _him_ , if I miss him. Hardly anyone knew about him though, no one knew about his words still inked into my skin. The letter I received still weighs heavy in my pocket, still stinging. It feels like I'm drowning.

"M'fine." _I wish this was different but I'm happy for you, truly. I want you to be happy._ The words haunt, impressed in my memory already. How am I supposed to move on when I know he feels the same? Even now, even after all this time? Even after I wear a ring she put on my finger without a second thought, unaware of my treacherous heart?

"Oli—"

"I'm _fine_ ," I reassure him. He's cute if I'm honest, and I'd considered it more than once. But he was as straight as I pretended to be and it was never viable. He's better as a friend, I'd tell myself. I believed it, honestly. He might be a good fuck but then what? I worry my drunken mind has run away again. It's always more difficult to control these urges when I'm intoxicated, especially when I'm missing him.

I barely even knew him which is the kicker. It was a fleeting summer, something I'd romanticized surely. Then again, I was so in love…I was so in love. In love. In _love_. "Oliver? Fuck, man. Hey—can we get some water down here?"

"I'm—"

"It's him again, isn't it? You're trying to drink him away?"

"Fuck you," I mutter because the alternative is admitting how desperately I ached for someone I'd known for such a short period of time, for someone I didn't choose. For someone who wasn't waiting for me at home.

"Oliver, you have to deal with it eventually," Jonathan says, his voice warm and soothing, his hand on my arm tight and kind. He'd stopped talking to me initially when he found out, too shocked to handle it, one of the reasons I kept my heart a secret. But he'd come around; he was one of the only ones who did. He'd been generous with his acceptance, but I was and am sure not everyone would be. It's bizarre, they'd say. Wanting men and women? Who does that?

Me, apparently. _Me._ And him. He wanted both as well, the only other person I'd met who did. He preferred me, and I preferred him. A tragedy in two acts, the summer and the fall.

The fall had passed, as had the winter, the spring, the summer, and again. I missed him terribly, the worst in the dead of night when I'd be lost in the memory of his voice and skin against me like a prayer. She could never know, it would kill her and as messed up as everything is, I do love her. 

"Want to talk about it?"

"You don't want to hear it," I mutter, accepting the glass of water he slides over to me. I used to drink wine, I wonder if he still does.

"Oliver? Have you told her?"

"Have I _told_ her?" I turn on him, expecting to see some humor in his eyes. Surely he was kidding. "Tell her what? That it wasn't a girl in Italy, but a man? That the reason I haven't slept since we got back from the honeymoon is because he wrote me a letter?" He casts his eyes away and I feel ill. When we'd returned to a stack of mail, her hands around my back, lips at my throat, I'd pushed them aside to lift her onto the counter. His name caught my eye while she was leaving a bruise on my neck. She mistook my stillness for acceptance of her actions, when really all I could think is he's too late, it's too late. I left the letter after, waited until midnight to read it when she was asleep in bed. It's been two weeks and still I feel dislodged inside my own mind. Tell her? Impossible. It would destroy her.

"Right," he says, grabbing my drink and throwing half of it back before sitting it back down in front of me. "Guess not, then."

"It doesn't change anything to tell her."

"You might feel—"

"What? Better? To tell her I'm—" I pause, breathless. I'm _what_? What was it I wanted to confess? I shake my head to rid the possibilities from escaping my lips. If he were here, confessing wouldn't feel like such a sin.

"What did that letter say, man? You've been fucked ever since you read it." He's not wrong, but I can't bring myself to let _his_ words out into the world. "Oliver—"

"It's not important."

"It clearly is. What, did he tell you not to go through with it?" I wince and down the other half of my scotch, feeling the burn and wishing it would consume my entire soul.

"Not quite," I mutter, still bitter that he seems to have accepted what I've done when I can't even bring myself to really let it sink in. He wanted me to be happy and believed her to be the answer to that equation. He didn't know, after all this time. He didn't know.

I still love him, and always will.

I toss some cash on the counter and leave without another word, stumbling only slightly as I leave. Perhaps I could call the professor, maybe he would give me his number. I could call him and tell him, I could confess my feelings and make this…more complicated. I'd make it more complicated.

Sometimes I wonder what's become of us, if anything. Would he hear my voice at Christmas and wonder if I'm happier without him, just I wondered every time his voice came to me over the airwaves? Or would the calls stop? Have I already heard him for the last time? It's hard to tell.

When I sober up after a restless night of sleep, I know I can't let that be the last time I hear from him. I set out to write a letter, but it sits dormant for months. When I finally finish it, it's cold and distant, nowhere near what it should be, so I never send it. The mot he included with his parent’s package for the wedding never empties and my letter gets discarded in the fireplace.

The next time I hear from him, he tells me of Vimini. I was in Jordan trying to "find myself" as Mary told our friends. _What about Italy, wasn't that his "find myself" moment?_ I'd laugh when they'd bring it up as if it wasn't still an open wound.

He writes to me of his university in America. I can't bring myself to consider the implications of him being so near, yet so far. I write back to his parent's home, terrified to write his address in my own handwriting, as if that would bring it to life. If I went to him now, with this ring on my finger, would he still see me as he once did? Would he understand my heart was still in his chest?

Would he forget it all? Push it away and pretend he didn't know the exact placement of his hand to make me black out in ecstasy?

I worried after a while that I'd made a mistake in mailing it to Italy. Perhaps it never made it to him, perhaps he never even saw my congratulations. I almost hoped he didn't.

Because he never wrote me again, never called, not once.

Not even when my son was born.

Not once.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for the continued support! I love this story and the reception it receives. And yes, I know. Some of you want that letter Elio wrote him... that letter is being written slowly but surely. It's always been my intention to let you read it eventually, but it's a lot to put into words so I'm not sure when it'll pop up in this continuum of stories. 
> 
> Leave me notes, I love them <3  
> Find me on tumblr!  
> 


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